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LOS ANGELES -- Americans got better about paying their credit card debt on time in the first three months of the year, a period when many borrowers use income tax returns to tackle their holiday season debt.

The rate of credit card payments at least 90 days overdue fell to 0.69 percent in the first quarter from 0.85 percent a year earlier -- drop of nearly 19 percent, credit reporting agency TransUnion said Tuesday.

The January-March card delinquency rate was also down from 0.73 in the October-December quarter, when many consumers ramped up credit use to finance holiday season purchases.

Neither a 2 percent hike in Social Security payroll taxes that took effect in January, nor delayed federal income tax returns this year appeared to blunt borrowers' ability to manage their debt.

While down, the late-payment rate is above historically low levels. The lowest late-payment rate on TransUnion records going back to the mid-1990s was 0.56 percent, set in the third quarter of 1994. More recently, it was at 0.60 percent in the second quarter of 2011.

All told, the card-delinquency rate has averaged 1.03 percent since 1992, said the firm, whose credit trend data is based from a sample of 27 million consumer records.

"Even a moderate uptick in delinquency is not a cause for concern, because we are at historic lows," said Ezra Becker, vice president of research and consulting in TransUnion's financial services business unit.

During the last recession, many Americans reined in spending in favor of paying off debt, particularly credit card balances. The housing downturn also prompted many homeowners to make paying their credit card accounts on time a priority ahead of other financial obligations, such as their mortgage payments.

Nearly four years after the recession, the U.S. economy and job market are far from fully recovered, but they have made steady progress.

The national unemployment rate remains at an elevated 7.5 percent, but that's down from a high of 10 percent in October 2009. The economy has been steadily adding jobs, home values are rising nationally and the stock market has been on a sustained upswing, with the Dow Jones industrial average index up about 17 percent this year.

Those factors have helped boost confidence among consumers, making them feel wealthier and more willing to spend. Even so, many remain careful about how they manage their debt.

Average credit card debt per borrower fell 1.7 percent to $4,878 in the first quarter from $4,962 in the same period last year, TransUnion said. On a quarterly basis, it declined 4.8 percent from $5,122 in the fourth quarter.

TransUnion, however, has forecast that average credit card debt will rise by roughly 8 percent to $5,446 by the end of this year -- the highest level in four years.

Meanwhile, the number of new credit card accounts opened by consumers continued to decline as 2012 drew to a close.

The data lags by a quarter, so the latest TransUnion figures cover the October-December period. They show that the number of new credit card accounts fell 1.6 percent from the same period in 2011.

The share of cards issued to borrowers with less-than-sterling credit slipped to 28.1 percent from 28.4 percent a year earlier. That's still above the 27.7 percent share in the fourth quarter of 2010, however.

In the VantageScore credit rating scale, consumers with a score lower than 700 on a scale of 501-990 are considered non-prime borrowers.

One reason why Marquis' gas purchases might have triggered a fraud lockdown? Filling their tank is a common first move for credit card thieves.

"Some of the things they look at are small-dollar transactions at gas stations, followed by an attempt to make a larger purchase," explains Adam Levin of Identity Theft 911.

The idea is that thieves want to confirm that the card actually works before going on a buying spree, so they'll make a small purchase that wouldn't catch the attention of the cardholder. Popular methods include buying gas or making a small donation to charity, so banks have started scrutinizing those transactions.

Of course, it's not a simple matter of buying gas or giving to charity -- if those tasks triggered alerts constantly, no one would do either with a credit card. But Levin points to another possible explanation: Purchases made in a high-crime area are going to be held to a higher standard by the bank.

"It's almost a form of redlining," he says. "If there are certain [neighborhoods] where they've experienced an enormous amount of fraud, then anytime they see a transaction in the neighborhood, it sends an alert."

(Indeed, Erin tells me that one of the gas purchases that triggered an alert took place in a rough part of Detroit, which she visited specifically for the cheap gas.)

People who steal credit cards and credit card numbers usually aren't doing it so they can outfit their home with electronics and appliances. They don't want the actual products they're fraudulently buying; they're just in it to make money. So banks are always on the lookout for purchases of items that can easily be re-sold.

"Anytime a product can be turned around quickly for cash value, those are going to be the items that you would probably assume that, if you were a thief, you would want to get to first," says Karisse Hendrick of the Merchant Risk Council, which helps online merchants cut down on fraud. Levin says electronics are common choices for fraudsters, as are precious metals and jewelry.

Many thieves don't want to go through the rigmarole of buying laptops and jewelry, then selling them online or at pawnshops. They'd much prefer to just turn your stolen card directly into cold, hard cash.

There are a few ways that they can do that, and all of them will raise red flags at your bank or credit union. Using a credit card to buy a pricey gift card or load a bunch of money on a prepaid debit card is a fast way to attract the suspicions of your credit card issuer. Levin adds that some identity thieves also use stolen or cloned credit cards to buy chips at a casino, which they can then cash out (or, if they're feeling lucky, gamble away).

When assessing whether a purchase might be fraudulent, banks aren't just looking at what you bought and where you bought it. They're also asking if it's something you usually buy.

"The issuers know the buying patterns of a cardholder," says Hendrick. "They know the typical dollar amount of transaction and the type of purchase they put on a credit card."

Your bank sees a fairly high percentage of your purchases, so it knows if one is out of character for you. A thrifty individual who suddenly drops $500 on designer clothes should expect to get a call -- or have to make one when the bank flags the transaction. If you rarely travel and your card is suddenly used to purchase a flight to Europe, that's going to raise some red flags.

Speaking of Europe, the other big factor in banks' risk equations is whether you're making a purchase in a new area. I bought a computer just days after moving from Boston to New York, and had to confirm to the bank that I was indeed trying to make the purchase. Levin likewise says that making purchases in two different cities over a short period of time raises suspicions.

"I go from New York to California a lot, and invariably someone will call me [from the bank], " he says. Since one person can't go shopping in New York and California at the same time, any time a bank sees multiple purchases in multiple locations in a short period, it's going to be suspicious.